


The Day Darkness Got Its Name

by Saphie



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012), The Croods (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 21:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saphie/pseuds/Saphie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don’t hide. That was what his mom and dad had told him. Don’t hide. Live.</p><p>But sometimes he had to hide to live. Sometimes, when darkness crept over the world and horrible things prowled in the night, their howls rending the empty air, he had to hide. Sometimes it was up in the hollows of trees or in (hopefully) abandoned animal burrows. For a few nights, it had been in a tiny little chamber inside a cave, with a terrible clawed creature prowling around the opening, trying to scratch its way in, the sound of claws scraping on stone tearing into his sleep.  </p><p>Every day, he lived just like he’d promised them, but he lived in fear. He feared that he wouldn't be able to find dinner and he feared that things would make dinner of him. Every night, he dreamed terrible dreams of teeth and claws and outstretched hands covered in tar.</p><p>All the while, Guy wondered why. Why had he survived? Why had he taken those few steps to the side that meant he hadn't gone slipping over that ledge into the tar pit? Why was he still going at all? What was the point of all this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Day Darkness Got Its Name

Don’t hide.

That was what his mom and dad had told him. Don’t hide. Live.

But sometimes he had to hide to live. Sometimes, when darkness crept over the world and horrible things prowled in the night, their howls rending the empty air, he had to hide. Sometimes it was up in the hollows of trees or in (hopefully) abandoned animal burrows. For a few nights, it had been in a tiny little chamber inside a cave, with a terrible clawed creature prowling around the opening, trying to scratch its way in, the sound of claws scraping on stone tearing into his sleep.  

Every day, he lived just like he’d promised them, but he lived in fear. He feared that he wouldn’t be able to find dinner and he feared that things would make dinner of him. Every night, he dreamed terrible dreams of teeth and claws and outstretched hands covered in tar.

All the while, Guy wondered why. Why had he survived? Why had he taken those few steps to the side that meant he hadn’t gone slipping over that ledge into the tar pit? Why was he still going at all? What was the _point_ of all this?

One night, where he lay curled on the hard stone ledge of a little hollow in cave, he looked over to the side and saw a light that he hadn’t seen the night before. It was pale and beautiful and he shimmied over to it, looking up to see where it was coming from. The little hollow opened up above him to tunnel and a gap, where he saw stars and the pale light of the moon.

It was bright and wonderful and he wanted to see more of it, but he didn’t dare leave the safety of the cave. Something held him back, something that felt like hooks in the back of his head.

Darkness meant death, an oily voice whispered in his head, and the light was only a lure, trying to draw him out into the dangerous world.

For a little while, Guy rocked there in place where he knelt on the stone, the urge to see losing out to the fear, but then he remembered what he’d been told.

_“Don’t hide. Live.”_

What kind of life was this, hiding from the light?

Crawling carefully, he managed to feel his way through the tunnel in the darkness, squirming out through the gap at the top onto flat rock that looked out over the valley he’d been making his way through. Far above him, he saw little winking lights in the darkness. The stars. He went over the word in his head, making himself remember it. (Without anyone to talk to, to ask questions of, it was difficult to remember what everything was called, and he had no names for the things he saw that were new.)

The moon looked down on him, too, a friendly face in the bleak night sky. Guy held out his hands, letting the pale light spill over it, and looked out at the great expanse. To his surprise, he realized that the light of the moon was brighter than he’d thought. Not as bright as the sun, but bright enough for him to make out some of the landscape.

Holding up his small hands, he grasped in the direction of the sky, watching the little lights spill through his fingers. Those were possibly suns, he thought. Yes, they had to be suns, the ones from days past, come to rest up in the sky. That’s what the stars were. Maybe there was a way to get to them. Maybe where they rested up there was where Tomorrow was. After all, if following the sun meant he would get to Tomorrow, the place where old suns rested had to be where it was.

It was the first time Guy realized that even the dark of night was tempered by the light, and after that, the fear wasn’t as strong as it used to be.

As time went on, it got even easier to keep the fear at bay, even though there were plenty of things to be afraid of.

* * *

“Nonononono. Oh no. Please, no. You don’t wanna eat me. I’m tiny! I’m gamey! You should be aiming for - for - for a _balanced_ diet. With things in it that aren't me!”

Guy was running for his life. This happened quite often. In fact, he’d even created something to make it a little easier. Wrapping his feet up in the thick leaves he’d found in the forest here, and tying them up with stringy vines made it less likely for his feet to get cut on sticks and rocks.

He’d decided to call his invention "shoes."

Shoes were probably the best thing he’d ever thought of, because right now they were the only thing saving his life. As he skidded down the rocky scree of a little slope, one he wouldn’t have normally been able to traverse otherwise, the terror bird skidded down after him, having trouble losing its footing just like he was.

Its loud screech echoed through the forest and he heard the snap-snap of its massive beak right behind him. Running even farther, he saw that the earth gave away ahead and he skidded to a stop at the edge of a small cliff. It wasn't the worst drop it could have been, but jumping meant either certain death or injury that might as well have meant certain death. There was no easy way down, other than running and finding an easier path, and with how much faster the giant bird ran than him, that probably meant certain death, too.

There were small trees all along the edge, though, with flexible trunks, and an idea popped into his head with all the suddenness of a midsummer rain. He started to climb up the nearest one, up into the higher branches until his weight started to drag the very top of the tree down over the edge of the cliff. It lowered him down to the field below at just the right speed to prevent injury. Then, as the terror bird peered over the edge, squawking ferociously, he let go.

He hadn’t intended for the tree to snap up and hit the bird in the beak, but he took notice when it did because it sent the creature running away, hurt and miserable.

Later on, as he stood in front of it in a field, waving his arms and calling out to it, the oily voice spoke in his ear again. It told him that it was too risky. It told him that it wasn’t going to work. It whispered to him that he was going to die, horribly, afraid and alone.

But then he was always close to dying, wasn’t he? What was the point of living at all if he was always close to dying? What was the point to it all if he didn’t fight back?

“Hey, ugly! Over here! Come and get me! Fresh meat on legs here!”

The terror bird squawked, running at Guy at full speed, snapping its beak viciously, ready to tear him apart. Guy didn’t run and he didn’t hide. He stood there, glaring at it defiantly as it charged towards him.

Just as it nearly reached him, its beak open to snap off its head, it stepped into the trap. It let out a keening terrified noise as it was hurled high up into the air - a noise that cut out when it slammed back into the ground with the sound of bones snapping.  

He ate well that night, the blood still warm as it settled on his tongue; the slimy meat tasting rich and salty as it slipped down his throat. He wished he could remember what his father had shown him about how to make fire, because food always tasted better when it spent some time roasting over it, but for now, this would do.

Before leaving behind the body to avoid the scavengers that he knew would come and fight him over it, he took time to gather some of the creature’s yellow and black feathers. Later, away from the carcass, in the pale light of the sunset, he sat in the opening of a cave in the half-dark and smiled at his work. He wasn’t sure what to call it, but when he threaded it around his waist, it looked good, he thought.

It also served as a reminder of something important he was starting to learn:

That while caution kept him alive, fear got him absolutely _nowhere_.  

* * *

He had to walk through the grasslands at night and he knew that probably meant death. There was no cover out there, no real shelter from the things that prowled through the vegetation. But he’d traversed the forest and the canyon and mentally mapped out every inch of it, and going through the grasslands was the only way to keep moving.

He had to keep moving to keep his promise. Always, no matter what, he had to follow the sun.

So when the newest sun rose and banished the night, he stood at the edge of the grasslands and looked out at the great expanse of waving blue grasses.

The voice spoke. It told him he didn’t know what was out there. It told him that there were things that would tackle him from places unseen and drink his blood. It told him that it was better to hide away, from the dark, from the things that would devour him whole, and live each day afraid but still alive.

Since he wasn't having any of that, Guy’s first step into the grasslands was as defiant as the tiny stride of a small boy could be.   

Later on, as he cowered against a boulder, while shadow shapes snuffled and growled in the grass, that defiance was gone. He should have listened, he thought, as one of them howled. He should have just hidden himself away.

 _I told you so_ , said the oily voice. _Now you’re going to suffer._ _It’s your own fault._

“No,” Guy huffed to himself. “No, it’s not my fault.”

There was no fault in wanting to follow a dream, in trying to fulfill a promise. If he died, then he died, but he wouldn’t feel guilty for wanting something better. 

And he wasn’t going to die without a fight.

Fire had always kept the animals away when his mother and father had made it. He had his father’s knife, thrown to him from the tar pit, and he had some flint. He just had to try to remember how it was done. Guy gathered some dry grass as tinder and a stick that had fallen from the spindly tree growing over the boulder, its roots stretching over the stone and digging into the earth.

It was strange but the light of the rising moon seemed to be almost friendly, making it easier to see what he was doing, making it so the beasts in the bush were more cautious than they would have been, waiting for the very last light of day to fade before attacking.

Guy struck the metal against the flint again and again. Finally, there was the tiniest sliver of light, a little spark that floated down. It went out before it could set the tinder alight, but that spark gave the boy hope. Striking at the flint again, he managed another spark. No go, but then he managed another.

This time, smoke started to rise from the grass as it started smoldering, and Guy blew on it, cautiously, gently, trying to stir the tiny fire to life.

“Come on, come on..."

He heard padded feet and claws digging up clods of soil in the darkness as they pranced around in their eagerness.

Blowing gently, the flame finally took and he started adding small twigs to it, then the pieces of the large stick he’d broken up. The growing ring of light kept the animals back, where they snuffled and growled with irritation that their prey was behind the strange, crackling source of danger to them. After a time, they ran off, their howls carrying off from the distance, as they left Guy behind and tried to find something a bit easier to eat.

Guy used another stick to make a torch, like he’d seen his parent do time and again and ventured out into the night until he found logs and grasses and dried animal dung to burn to get himself through the night, then ventured back and fed his little fire every time it started to burn low. When the moon slipped under the horizon, he said goodnight to it, bidding it farewell like it was an old friend. Right when he ran out of things to burn and the fire eventually fell, the sun decided to rise.

He had survived the night. After that, he had a way to survive every night and because he did, the oily little voice in his head sometimes had nothing to say anymore.

But whenever there were times that he probably should have been afraid, Guy always had the strangest feeling that there was a presence there, that there was something watching him from the shadows and whispering in his ear. There were even a few times, amidst the flickering light of one of his fires, that he could have sworn there was something slipping around in darkness that looked alive.  

* * *

Guy was fairly sure he was dying. The mountains here were much drier than they’d looked from a distance. There were no rivers, no clear little pools like mountains were supposed to have, just dry rocks and scrubby trees. 

 _You **are** dying_ , said the voice. _You don’t know what’s going to happen next and it could be horrible._

“I’ve had a good life,” he argued. “If there’s somewhere else where people go after life’s over, my family will be waiting for me.”

_You’re twelve. You can’t have had a good life when you’ve only had twelve years of it. And you don’t know if they’ve gone anywhere at all. Maybe everything they were just blinked out of existence when they finally stopped. Maybe that oblivion is all that’s awaiting you._

He was going to miss out. The sinking realization of that, that there would be no Tomorrow, no place where he finally got to be happy, where things were better, was like a stone around his neck.

He was going to die, thirsty and delirious, and that knowledge made him afraid. The fear didn’t stop him from setting one foot after the other, though, so by the time he got through the mountain passes and reached the lush forest other side, he was indeed delirious, but at least he was still moving.

“I told you, I don’ want go to the trails where the stars are,” he murmured to himself. “They’re going to fall if I do. They’ll fall out of the sky and break the trees. Squish squish.”

He stumbled through the underbrush, tripping and falling as his feet got caught up on some vines and saplings, skidding to a stop in a mossy glade. Far off, he could hear the trickle of water. To his fevered mind, it sounded like his mother crying.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I broke my promise. I’m sorry. Tomorrow’s too far.”

It was then that the shifting lights over his head warped into a strange face dangling over him.

 _Kill it_ , said the voice. _It’s going to bite you, it’s going to eat you, kill it now, while you still can!_

“Too tired to kill things,” Guy said, a little flippantly. “ _You_ kill it.”

The little creature just continued peering at him, then crawled off into the trees. A short while after, something hard landed on Guy’s stomach. His arms curled around himself instinctually to defend his torso, but then he saw a bright purple fruit resting in the grass. Guy reached out for it slowly, his fingers tapping against it to make sure it was real. It was solid under his fingertips, the rind hard but somewhat yielding, as if it was hollow inside. Grasping it in his hands, he shook it weakly and there was a sloshing sound coming from its depths. 

_It might be poisonous._

“I’m pretty sure I'm dying. I’d say it’s high time to throw caution to the wind, don’t you think?”

Reaching for his knife, he managed to lift a weak and shaking hand up to cut the top off the fruit. Then he struggled to sit up, shivering and shaking as he did, and held it up to his lips. It was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted and the feeling of the juice trickling over his parched tongue and down his dry throat was the most amazing thing he’d ever felt. Before long, he’d scooped out and eaten most of the mouth-watering fruit within. That was when more fruit rained down from above. Guy drank the juice and ate the fleshy fruit of three of them before finally settling back and laying there in the moss, fingers sticky, his stomach aching. Above him dangled the strange little creature, holding another fruit.

“I’m good,” he said to the strange little animal. It gave a gesture that almost looked like a shrug and tossed the fruit down next to him in case he wanted it. Then it started to pick leaves and gnaw on them as it stared down at him

_It could be dangerous._

“I think it just saved my life.”

The little creature looked around to see who Guy was talking to, then gave him a strange look.

“Don’t mind me,” Guy said to the creature. “I’m still slightly delirious.”  

Indeed he was, but he was feeling slightly better now, at least, and coming back to himself. The world was resolving itself into something a bit less shifting and strange.

The creature nodded, as if to say ‘Well, okay then. I guess I can let your weirdness slide for now.’

It was pretty expressive for a long-armed little bundle of fur.

Guy lay there for a long time, half in and out of consciousness, until finally the pounding headache gave way to a dull feeling of having feather down in his mouth. When he came down from his delirium, the light had faded enough for him to tell it was evening. The little reddish creature was still dangling above him, eating leaves.

“You’re not really in much of a rush to get anywhere, are you.”  

The creature made a strange gurgling noise and dropped down to get a closer look at him. Guy eyed the claws at the end of its fingers warily as it crept over to him.

_Kill it. It’s going to hurt you. Kill it now!_

No, thought Guy. No, that was pretty dumb. 

That was the day he realized the voice in his head, that niggling little whisper of fear, wasn’t always looking out for his best interests - because if he had killed the little sloth out of fear, the lonely nights would’ve been that much lonelier.

* * *

He was fifteen now, and if he didn’t stop the koalrus that was trying to eat him and Belt, he wasn’t going to make it to his sixteenth summer. It had been hunting them for a week now, barely letting them get any rest. At this point, it was either kill or be killed. 

_You need to run. You need to hide._

“What I need,” said Guy, as he cut the vine that held the stone that triggered his very elaborate trap, “is a new pair of shoes.”  

The koalrus charged, its clawed feet pounding against the stone,  and around it, vines snapped and spikes shot up into place.

The voice in the back of Guy's head hissed its discontent at his success.

That night, when he skinned it and dried out the skins of its clawed feet for his new pair of shoes, it felt to him as if something was shifting unhappily in the darkness around the fire. When he was through with the skins and sitting down to roast the meat and eat it, he left just a little bit of roasted meat at the edge, where the light faded into the dark.

“Not hungry, huh?” he said after a while, when he saw that the meat still sat there.   

Or maybe it was just hungry for something else.

In any case, he’d made the recent discovery of a local fruit that stained his skin brown when the juice was exposed to the sun. Painting a mix of that, clay, and grease onto himself in a design like the stripes of the koalrus left an indelible reminder of what letting go of fear got him. (In this case, it was a very nice pair of shoes.) 

* * *

“Back! I said back!”   

Caveys. Of course he’d run into caveys with how the mountains were here, all full of rifts and tunnels and places that made for good shelter. But it was much easier taking this path than the one along the river, full of shifting logs that could toss him into the drink at a moments notice and prone to the occasional rockslide.

They growled at him and a large male that seemed to be the head of the family tossed rocks as big as his head _at_ his head. Waving the torch in their direction temporarily stopped the barrage but his torch would burn down eventually. He didn’t have long.

“All I want is to move through your territory. That’s all, I swear, I’m not here to hurt any of you or take anything from you!” he called out, hoping to placate them and calm them down. He knew it wouldn't work. 

Sometimes, he ran into other nomads, more like himself. As an outsider, he was never trusted. At most, he’d trade what little he had for what little they had, maybe share a few stories, revel in a few brief hours of human contact, and move on. Caveys were different, though. They were territorial, aggressive, and while he’d met one or two that left him alone, they were far from friendly.

 Guy ducked another rock hurled at his head and tried to run, waving the torch in between himself and the cavemen.

“Please, I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t -”

The torch in his hands was suddenly knocked away from above, and he looked up to see that one of them, an older male, was perched on the rock over his head. He only had a moment to reach for his knife, fear and instinct guiding his hand, before the caveman leapt upon him, knocking him to the ground with a savage blow.

Then, as he lay there on the stone, his eyes locking on the eyes of his attacker, he felt warm blood cascading over his hand. The caveman gasped, eyes wide in shock as he backed away, holding a hand to his gut, leaving the bloody knife behind in Guy’s hand. 

“I’m sorry,” Guy huffed in a hushed voice, holding out his other hand. “I told you, I didn’t want any trouble. I didn’t want -”

The caveman’s family was screaming and screeching with rage and pain as the cavemen staggered back, blood pouring through the hands clutched at his gut, and Guy swept up the still-smoldering torch into his hand, running away as fast as he could. Behind him, he heard cries of grief and mourning echoing through the valley, until he’d put so much distance between himself and the family of cave-dwellers that he knew he might at last be safe.

His hands were still bloody as he gathered firewood and lit his fire. They were still bloody as he sat with his knees drawn up to his chin, shivering, with his back to the cave wall. Belt tried his best to comfort him, a gentle, clawed hand smoothing its way through his tangled hair.

_I told you it would end this way. You’ve refused to listen to me for the last long while and look where it’s always gotten you. You need to stay here, to hide where nothing can hurt you. It’s what you’ve always needed to do. The world outside is dark and dangerous. You can’t trust anyone or anything._

Guy didn’t answer.

_All this wandering, this searching, all this following the light - where has it gotten you? What has it brought you? Nothing but pain._ _If you have any hope at all of surviving in this world, you need to embrace **fear**._

Guy still didn’t answer.    

_Will you start listening to me now?_

“What _are_ you?” Guy finally asked the voice, after years of wondering what it was but never voicing his questions. To ask questions of it would've acknowledged that it was real. “I used to think you were a part of me, my own thoughts, my own instincts, but I don’t think you are. Not anymore.”

_I **am** a part of you._

“No, you’re not,” said Guy. “You sound like parts of me. The things you say sound real that way, make you sound almost like you’re something in my own head, but you always take it too far. I haven’t thought the way you always try to make me think since I was little.”

_You listened to me then._

“I cowered in the dark then,” Guy said defiantly. “I was small and - and scared and I thought the world was too dangerous to - to _live_ in.”

_I know. Those **were** the days._

Guy saw him now, at the edges, where the light of the fire met the shadows. He finally saw the shape he knew had been there all along, a figure that was almost human and at the same time, not human at all. He’d been waiting for this moment for a while now, and had long since gathered what he needed to discreetly, trying to shift his thoughts about it far in the back of his mind, buried away where the voice might not see them.

Guy tossed the dried tree sap he’d collected on the fire, causing it to briefly burn impossibly bright, banishing all the shadows in the cave. For a moment, he saw the lone silhouette of a man standing where the shadows had been. Then the fires burned down again and the shadows danced back into place around the fire

“I suppose there’s no reason for me to hide anymore, is there?”

The figure melted out of the rest of the shadows, his form still shifting and dancing uncertainly in the flickering light and he took a seat on one of the large rocks near the fire.  

Guy sat with his back to the stone, his eyes fixed on the figure’s hollow eyes.

“Seriously. What are you?”

“I’m not even sure myself. An idea, perhaps. An instinct, given a life of its own when your kind first came down out of the trees. It’s only recently that I’ve started to take on such concrete form, though, that I’ve become so...aware of everything. Of my own thoughts. There’s no word for it yet, for achieving that state of being. Perhaps you’ll come up with one someday, with that brilliant mind of yours.”  

“You’ve been following me. My whole life. Even before my family was gone, you were always there in the dark. I just noticed you more after I was on my own.”

“It was _you_ that gave me shape. Deep down, you thought I was a some _one_ instead of a some _thing_. Why would I ever leave you? You don’t remember them well enough to realize, but you’re smarter than your parents were, you know. The people you came from, they were getting smarter through the generations, but you’re the first to truly dream, the first to have - to have -”

The shadow-man searched for the right word, and settled for making one up. A broad smile with too many teeth spread across the shadow’s face.

“Let’s call them ‘nightmares,' shall we?”

Dreams of claws and teeth and always, always, outstretched hands smeared with tar.

Tar was what this creature reminded Guy of. A shadow that threatened to suck him down into the dark if he didn’t pull free of it. This tar-like being, this man made of pitch, had been leeching off of him this whole time, digging his claws into the back of his mind, feeding off of his fear.

“You have to start listening to me again,” said the man. “For your own sake, you have to be afraid. Look what happens when you aren’t.”

The shadow gestured towards Guy’s stained hands.  For a moment, Guy stared at them, too, but then he looked back at the shadow.

“Yeah, no,” he said quietly.     

“What do you mean ‘no’?” said the shadow man.

“I mean the free ride’s over. I’m only willing to take on one tagalong, not two,” said Guy, nodding down at Belt, who had been watching the entire exchange in slack-jawed astonishment.

“I don’t think you understand,” said the shadow. “You have no choice.”

“Yes, I do. I can tell what you’ve been doing. You’ve fed off of my fear. That’s why you tried to keep me scared even when it was bad for me.” Guy stood up to face the shadow, fists clenched at his sides. “You’re not going to get to do that anymore.”

The shadows suddenly reared up, crowding in around the fire and around Guy menacingly. The shadow man suddenly stood, towering over him, its form bent against the roof of the cave.

“You think you actually have any say in the matter?” asked the shadow, sneeringly.

“Yes,” said Guy, staring up at what passed for the shadow’s face.

“You can’t get rid of the shadows, boy. Even the brightest fire you make will never truly chase away the dark. Now that I’ve taken form, I will _always_ exist.”

“That might be true,” said Guy, “but I can choose to not be afraid. Maybe I needed you once to survive, but I don’t anymore and I’m _not_ going back to hiding in the dark.”

Withdrawing from the ceiling, the shadow man took a more concrete form now, a being all in greys and black, draped in black skins that stretched into the floor and the shadows beyond the fire. He stood up tall, looming over Guy, his yellow eyes unblinking.    

“It’s not a choice,” snarled the man. “You can’t just send me away.”

“Yes,” said Guy, “it is. And yes, I can.”  

The shadows leapt up around the man and hissed.

“Leave me alone, Pitch,” Guy said, and the moment the name snapped into place was the same moment the shadow lost its influence over him. He had a name for his fear, but that made it something that was known rather than an unknown. It made it into something he could fight.

“You need me! You need to me to survive!”

“I’ve got Belt, a knife, some flint, and - and I’m thinking of calling it a brain,” Guy said, tapping a bloody hand to his temple. “I’ve got all those things and they’re the only things I ever needed.”  

Furious now, Pitch snarled at him, “I’m real. You can’t just wish me away like a bad dream!”

Pitch lunged towards him, but Guy stood firm.

“I know you’re real,” said Guy, and he shook his head, his lips briefly pressing together in a taut line. “I’m just not afraid of you.”

There was a feeling, like being doused in a sudden cold mist, as the shadow passed through him, and when he looked around the cave, it was gone.   

Guy raised his eyebrows slightly as he looked at Belt. Sitting down again next to the fire, he rested his back against the rough stone of the cave wall.

“Long day, huh?” he said to Belt. “Killing someone in self defense was bad enough, but I could have done without having to confront the shadow monster made of fear.”

The little sloth nodded somewhat frantically.

“Let’s take it easy tomorrow, okay?” Guy said, looking out through the cave opening.

The moon slowly dipped into view and it was shining bright. For some reason, Guy got the sense he was being watched again, only this time it didn’t send little shivers down his spine. For a moment, just a moment, he thought he saw a face in the moon’s features, and he raised a hand as if to draw them there with his finger: two eyes, a nose, and a little smile.

He smiled a small smile back.  

Then his hand dropped and he closed his eyes, resting the back of his head against the cool stone.

Tonight he’d dream. Maybe he’d even have nightmares again, ones that involved warm blood pouring over his hands, staining them like tar, but they’d fade in the morning light. Then he’d wake up, wash up, get something to eat, and move on like he always did, following the light of the sun, knowing someday it would lead him to Tomorrow.   

* * *

He couldn’t see him anymore. He couldn’t hear him. No matter how much he yelled or railed or tried to strike at him, the boy was blind to his presence now. When it was finally, abundantly clear that this would not change, the being now named Pitch slunk out into the dark night, alone and defeated. Later on, he found others to terrorize, others to believe he was there hiding in the shadows. He told himself it didn’t matter that he’d been cast aside, turned away by a young man’s defiance.

It was a lie, of course.

Deep down in his dark heart, as much as he denied it, he knew that he’d gotten a sign of how it would all end right there in the very beginning...

With a light holding back the darkness, and the hand that held it spreading it wherever its owner went.  

The sting of being rejected and confronted burned until long after Guy and his immediate descendants were gone from the world. Others eventually defied him, too...

_“I do believe in you,” called out the boy, where he stood barefoot on the street below him, his expression similar to one Pitch had seen before, a very, very, very long time ago. “I’m just not afraid of you!”_

…but in all the centuries upon centuries that came after, it simply annoyed and angered him when humans stood up to him, when they cast away the fear he sowed. It never really impressed him, not since humans had tamed the world and the only monstrous things found in it were created by their own hands.

Only one person that had stood up to him had ever impressed him and only because that defiance was that much more extraordinary to Pitch when there were still things besides himself that went bump in the night.   

You never forgot your first believer. 

That held true, even for Pitch Black.

**Author's Note:**

> So yes, this was totally a Rise of the Guardians crossover, one that plays with movie canon, as it's hard to tell in the movie if Pitch was Kozmotis Pitchiner before he was Pitch, or a being that came to life with human belief in the early days of the world. Obviously, I leaned more towards the latter interpretation. 
> 
> I decided to leave the RotG aspect unlabeled so it's a bit more of an "aha!" moment when people figure it out.


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